Leary had it right...

As strange as the man was, he had it right. Pseudo-shaman Timothy Leary, prophet at the center of the now decades old LSD centrifuge, once said that surfers were perhaps the most "evolved" of all people groups. We give up accumulation for the sake of "the dance". We forsake cultural self-evaluation and the consequent neuroticism for "the dance". The stage becomes more important than the audience. The improvisational act becomes more relished than the expectation of a scripted life. "The dance", the pure moments experienced while riding on a wave of energy moving through liquid beneath your body, is a consuming presence in the surfer's thoughts.

As it is for a wave it is for a life. The moments spent creating compel us onward. The emergence of a new paradigm is a moving target, but worth pursuing. Doodle becomes sketch becomes painting becomes triptych becomes installation becomes interaction between idea and the viewer. One wave becomes scribble becomes board dimensions becomes draft shape becomes a realized board design strand. Creative acts build upon their own younger brothers' foundational steps. Just as that first wave transforms into that life-long memory of a wave. Just as one board design becomes an access point to another design.

Above, Manuel C. Caro shares a snapshot in the evolution of his surfing and shaping dance. He is a man who relishes the creative act for the full engagement that is required of it and the rewards it brings in like kind. The only description of riding a hull that has ever intrigued me beyond, "that's a cool trip." I was fortunate enough to handle a fine little stubby, fruit of Mr. Caro's hands, and can honestly say that I'm ready to give the shape a go. The dance goes on.